


I Am Dragon

by kyoloren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Knights - Freeform, Magic, Prince Ben Solo, Quests, Rey Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23892313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoloren/pseuds/kyoloren
Summary: In a tale as old as time, in the Skywalker kingdom, there is a prince in a castle, guarded by a malicious, black and red dragon. And there is a girl, the granddaughter of a fearsome knight whowillslay the dragon and bring home the prince.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 114
Collections: REYLO WEEK 2020





	I Am Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt of “Legends / Mythology / Fairy tales” for reylo week on tumblr! I wanted to write my own fairy tale. A big thanks to LadyofReylo for beta’ing this for me! 
> 
> Inspired also by the amazingly Reylo Russian movie called “I Am Dragon”. I highly recommend trying to find it and watching it! I found it on vudu in the US :)

Within the Skywalker kingdom, there was a prince. No one had ever seen him except for his parents, the Queen and King, and his uncle, the captain of the King’s personal knights. They say he was tall and handsome in the way that women in the kingdom liked: not too pretty, not too rough, not too squared off like most working men came to be. 

Why had no one seen this prince, you ask? The tale goes that he was cursed by an evil wizard, someone tall and wicked with a hunched back and cloaked face. Cursed with what, the family never said, but when he was a young man, he was rushed away under his uncle’s care and set in the tower of a castle, far, far in the northern mountains.

Tales were passed along, mouth-to-ear, throughout the kingdom. He needed to be saved, but no one would speak of how until months later, when a huge, red dragon razed the fields and forests of the North.

_Kill the dragon_ , became the solution.

Kill the dragon, save the prince, and take his hand in marriage, became the decree from the Queen.

This prompted young women to shed their fine silks and needlepoint and strap on leather and armor, take up swords and build their bodies into something that could fight. A generation of warrior princesses was born.

Now, one did not have to be a princess to try to save the prince. Many had tried and died at the hands of the dragon. Many had simply failed from lack of courage or will. Many were princesses, but some were duchesses, or daughters of Lords who could afford to train her alongside his sons. 

And some, some were even lower.

It had been ten years since the prince was taken away. He was thirty now, and the Queen and King were aging and growing restless. Could no one save him and bring him home?

oOo

Rey Kenobi was not a princess. She was not even a duchess. She was the granddaughter of Obi Wan Kenobi, a legend around the Skywalker kingdom. He had been the right-hand Knight to the King Regent, Anakin, the Prince’s grandfather. He was the best knight in the whole kingdom. But he and the King parted ways on bad terms and he forever roamed the lands afterward.

Rey’s mother was Obi Wan’s daughter, born from a union between the Skywalker knight and the neighboring Mandalorian monarch. An illegitimate child, she was scurried away and grew up with her father, a nomadic lifestyle living off the land. Eventually she gave birth to Rey, sadly not living long after the labor. Obi Wan, an old man now, left the baby with some farmers for a number of years until she could talk and eat and look after herself before he came back.

She’d lived with him her entire life until he disappeared one night. She never knew if he died or was taken or if he decided to leave. Perhaps he wanted to die alone, and he left to spare her the pain.

No matter, she was alone now, trained by the best Knight of the age, and she had her sights set on the biggest challenge: defeating the dragon. She was not after the title or the crown, she told the King and Queen as she kneeled before them, introducing herself and her intentions. She just wanted to kill a dragon.

Days later, she sat on the top of a grassy knoll, the tower in the distance, close enough to see, but far enough away to hide. She had let her horse, Bea, roam in the fields and nearby copse of trees in hopes that the dragon would not find and eat it.

She sat crossed legged in the grass before a smokeless fire for warmth. Two days she had been here, studying, watching, waiting. The dragon only appeared at night. It was large, but not enormous. Perhaps a forty foot wingspan, a long whipping tail ended in spikes, scales back with crackling red edges.

From afar, it was as beautiful as it was deadly.

Rey had seen the scorched lands, the twisted, melted armor and bones that were all that was left of numerous women who had come before her. It did not make her feel better or worse about her luck. She was a patient woman; her grandfather had taught her that patience could be a great tool.

So she sat and she watched and she waited. During the day, she slept, she ate, she parried with tree bark with her sword, and, at night, she sat and watched, scraping a whetstone over her blade and trying not to shake and cower when the dragon took flight. It didn’t go far. Not anymore. 

The Queen told her that they hired a wizard, a different, kinder one than had cursed her son, to trap the dragon in the North so it could not travel to the towns and capital and kill the population. Up North, it could kill sheep and rams and the occasional wild horse or wolf. And, of course, the women who came to fight it.

Sometimes Rey could feel the wind off the wingbeats, pulling at the loose hairs around her face fallen from her braid, the gusts of air always warmer than the rest of the night.

On the third night, Rey watched, sharpened blade at her side, kicking some moist soil and grass onto her small fire to smother the dying embers. She shivered even under her woolen clothes and leather armor. She didn’t wear metal while she waited, though it was there, waiting in her steed’s saddlebags. It was fitting to her form, enough to protect her torso mostly, where she was the most vulnerable. It was difficult but not impossible to put it on herself.

“Where do you go?” she murmured to herself as she heard the dragon cry out, a roar so deep, so loud that her teeth chattered. She heard her horse neigh in fear and disappear into the trees. 

Hazel eyes stayed focused on the tower and the dragon that slowly crawled out from behind the hulking mass of the abandoned castle. Rey’s fingers tightened around her swordhilt and she waited, watching. 

The dragon walked along the ground, claws raking at the tormented ground. It shook its big, broad head with twisted horns and leapt into the air, tucking powerful legs and arms against its body.

Like every night, Rey thought of how beautiful the beast was. She was almost sad she would have to kill it. 

The dragon’s wings pumped through the air, going up, up, up into the clear night sky. The moon shone off its scales, glittering a pale silver. Rey had to lean back and crane her neck to follow the flight.

At one point, some invisible force stopped the dragon from flying any farther. With a roar, it dropped, tucking powerful wings against its body and letting itself fall.

Rey’s stomach rose into her throat at the sight, remembering when she once dove off a high cliff into a deep pond.

She almost, _almost_ cried out when the dragon’s huge form got too close to the ground. If it killed itself, she wouldn’t get the glory from completing her quest!

But at the last moment, it unfurled its wings, stopping its descent, opened its jaws and let out a volley of fire.

Rey scooted back reflexively even though it was a quarter mile away and down in the valley. She had never seen the dragon breath fire before and she swore she could feel the heat from this far away.

Trees caught fire, lighting up like torches, but luckily there was a river below her hill to stop it from reaching her. But it lent too much light and shadows for her to hide.

“Damn,” she cursed under her breath as the dragon cut off the stream of flame and seemed to look right at her. “Damn, damn, _damn_.”

Scrambling to her feet, she pulled her sword from its sheath and got to her feet, sliding down the hill and tumbling at the end, wincing as her foot caught on the root of a tree from the copse. She slammed into the ground and spun onto her back as the dragon appeared. 

Its head was almost as large as her whole body.

Deadly talons dug into the soft hill as it leaned down, craning its shining neck toward her.

The light from the flaming trees glinted off the scales like molten gold. 

Its breath was hot, _steaming_ in the night air as it opened its great jaws. 

“You won’t kill me,” she said through gritted teeth, eyes watering from the heat. Sword in hand, she wasn’t at a good angle to swing, but she kept it between her and the dragon’s head. 

It paused. Could dragons understand human speech? Rey had been trying to remember if her grandfather had ever fought a dragon or told her about them. If it could understand…was this perhaps the first time someone had tried speaking to it?

Rey thought of the corpses she had passed on her way here. Warriors, yes, but they had not been raised by someone as multifaceted as Obi Wan Kenobi, had they?

“You won’t kill me, unless it’s during fighting blows,” she elongated her sentence. Her foot was trapped, and fighting on her elbows was no way to die. “You will let me live tonight.”

The dragon’s head tilted and she saw one of its small eyes, golden and intelligent, set amongst the hard, stiff scales. It leaned close, the tip of her sword sliding off its muzzle uselessly.

Rey held her breath, knuckles white from clutching at the hilt. Her heart pounded and she could feel sweat pouring off of her as the dragon got closer still.

Its breath was hot and dried her eyes. She squeezed them shut as they burned, holding her breath as she felt a huff of air, as if the dragon had sniffed her and then snorted at her scent. 

The air around her got blissfully cool.

Rey opened one of her eyes and found the dragon gone, saw it flying into the night, away from her. She sagged back against the ground in relief, buried her face in the crook of her elbow and counted her blessings.

Tomorrow, she would see about the prince.

oOo

The tower did not have an entrance. Of course not. If it did, the first woman who came here could have saved the prince. It had no door, not even a connection to the castle below. It was very tall, and had a few windows she could only see from afar, astride her horse, Bea. 

The dragon was only around at night. Rey had wondered why no one tried to get to the prince during the day. There were probably a number of reasons:

One being the tower itself. The stones and mortar were completely smooth so she couldn’t climb up. 

Two, the ground around the castle was completely ravaged. It was scorched and clawed so much that Bea had almost gone lame in the leg from the soft underfoot.

Third, the castle was in ruins. There wasn’t enough of it to try to create a ladder or a climbable pile before the dragon awoke.

Rey did not see the dragon. She didn’t know where it went during the day. Perhaps there were caves in the mountains behind the castle that she couldn’t see.

She spent hours trying to figure out a way to see the prince, or to check if he was even _inside_. She wanted to kill a dragon, yes, but if the prince being in the tower was a ploy, she didn’t want to kill a dragon for an untruthful Queen and King.

At the end of the day she did not see or hear the prince. She tried calling up but her voice was caught on the wind and taken away.

It was getting to be dusk and Rey took Bea and returned to her hill, even though the dragon knew she was there. She felt better having the forest at her back. The dragon could set them on fire, but she could also move quickly through them where it could not follow.

The top of the hill was ruined from the dragon’s claws and belly from the night before, so Rey set up her camp close to the trees at the base. Before the sun dipped below the horizon, she went to the river to wet down her hair and braid it tightly against her scalp before tucking it into her tunic so it wouldn’t get in the way of a fight.

She ate her dwindling supply of bread and watched the dragon appear. Just like every other night, it roared into the sky, the sound rattling Rey’s eardrums. She stood this time, sword in her belt, hand resting on the hilt. 

Her eyes followed the dragon as it swooped through the skies, disappearing from her view for thirty minutes in which time her legs began to ache and she had to walk about to loosen up her hips. She walked to the river and waited, the chilled air on her back. Her vision skipped over the charred remains of the scorched trees across on the other side of the riverbank. They had still been smoldering when she and Bea crossed the territory earlier.

The dragon appeared suddenly, dropping from the sky like a boulder. The ground did not shake when it landed, stopped just in time by the wide wings for a soft landing. It crouched on the other side of the river, merely twelve feet across.

Rey tilted her head to the side and the dragon turned its bloodied face to better see her with one golden eye.

“You’ve eaten, I see,” she said, wondering why on earth she was talking to this creature. “That’s good, I don’t wish to be anyone’s meal tonight.”

The dragon dipped its head into the river to drink and lifted a clean face from the fast current. 

“So you have some manners,” Rey quipped.

The beast barred its teeth at her, white and sharper than the sword in her hand, rows of them set into blood-red gums.

She shifted her weight on her feet and the dragon reacted, tensing and hissing, claws sinking through the soft riverside and sinking into the water.

“I’m not going to fight you tonight.” No, she didn’t think she was. She needed to…well she needed to stop speaking to the creature like it was a human being and she needed to find a place to stage their battle. She could not go back to the Queen and King empty handed--with neither the dragon’s head nor the prince.

But the dragon didn’t seem to be listening. It reared back on powerful legs, wings flapping out to the sides, sending gusts of wind so strong that Rey stumbled backward, barely keeping her feet. Her hand stretched for her hilt against the gale and she barely had time to grip before the dragon pounced across the river.

Rey lifted her sword from the sheath and swung. It bounced off the scales of the dragon’s neck. She continued moving backward, faster and faster and it followed, crawling, teeth gnashing, breath smelling of the fetid remains of its last meal.

She swung again to no avail. Hissing a curse under her breath, Rey ducked and headed toward the trees. The dragon surged up behind her and she yelped, arms going up to protect her head as its jaws snapped around a tree trunk, sending down cascades of wood chips and branches. The beast flailed with the tree in its jaws and Rey hissed when a chunk of wood sliced through her tunic, cutting into her arm.

She hurried back, trying to think of soft spots on a creature made to be so powerful. She could only think of the eyes, and even her own stomach rolled at the thought of taking out an enemy by the eyes.

The dragon tossed the tree aside, letting it half-crash into the river. It turned furious eyes at Rey, who was still holding her sword aloft.

The _sword_.

With a quick twist, Rey turned and punted the sword away, toward the soft hill. She held her hands up, one of them with lines of blood dripped into her palm and down her fingers.

“No weapons,” she panted out, heart beating rapidly, nearly choking her. She repeated it breathlessly, hoping to live through the night.

The dragon brought its face quickly to her and she yelped, closing her eyes. No pain followed. She peeked and saw the dragon sniffing at her hands with one large nostril. The puff of air it let out afterward was enough to make her gag from the smell but she composed herself so she didn’t offend the creature.

Her arm was starting to ache from where it was bleeding. Her hand held aloft shook.

She took a small step backward but the dragon’s jaws opened menacingly as she did so. She froze. She refused to believe she was _cowering_ ; a lesser woman may have, when faced with such a situation, but Rey was raised to be able to get herself out of anything.

Rey held her breath as the dragon’s tongue, forked like a reptile’s but thicker and meatier due to its size, flicked out from behind those flesh-ripping teeth and licked her bloody hand. She tried very hard to stay still as the tongue nearly circled around her arm, up to the large cut from the fallen wood.

What the beast could gain from _tasting her_ , she did not know, but she dared not move, not speak. And then, just like the last night, the beast was gone, nearly knocking her over with its wings, climbing into the air.

Rey finally let out a breath and flopped right back onto the earth. Her arm tingled and when she looked down, she stared in wondrous amazement as the jagged skin stitched itself back together right before her very eyes. 

oOo

“I need to kill it,” Rey said to Bea, pacing back and forth in the mid-morning. She had fallen into a dead sleep once the dragon disappeared and woke up with a clouded head. “I definitely…need to kill this dragon. For the Queen and King.” She nodded, readjusting the knot in her belt. “I have to try to see if the prince is in the tower and then tonight, I’ll kill the beast.”

Bea took her slowly through the soft soil toward the castle again and then grazed skittishly on the sparse weeds growing in the ruined courtyard. Rey found the highest part of the crumbling castle and put all her prayers into it not falling into pieces as she climbed it. Once she got to the top, she swayed a little, eyes wanting to look downward. Instead, she turned her gaze toward one of the windows at the top of the tower.

“Prince Benjamin!” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth. Nothing. She tried again, and again.

“Blast,” she muttered. She was not as high as she could be on this crumbling battlement. Gritting her teeth, she climbed higher, even as she felt rocks shifting beneath her boots. Keeping her arms out to her sides for balance, she stood higher than she ever had in her life, and looked across to the tower. The windows were still a few feet too high for her to see inside.

Sucking in a deep breath, she called out one last time: “Prince Benjamin!”

She did not get the full name out. The wind decided in that moment to pick up, perfectly hitting her off balance. Rey’s world shifted and tilted as she spun her arms, trying to keep herself upright, but the seconds slipped by and she tilted forward, feet slipping off the stone.

She dropped, one hand flying out and barely catching the edge of the battlement. Her shoulder screamed in agony with the weight of her whole body thrust down upon it.

The words and sounds that escaped from her in a flood had no meaning except desperation and frustration. She couldn’t die like this, falling from a castle ruin. She would much rather take the jaws of death from the dragon at this rate.

But her hand was slipping and she could find no purchase. The more she shifted, the more the rock under her hand loosened.

The fall may not kill her…but if it didn’t, she would definitely be the dragon’s next meal.

Swallowing hard and picturing her grandfather, Rey forced on a gritted smile of a true knight facing danger, and tried one last time to swing her other arm up to the rock.

Her fingers slipped and she screamed as she plummeted toward the rocks and weeds below.

oOo

Rey woke on hard packed dirt. Her body rose slowly, shifting a little as the discomfort from the ground began to make itself known. She rolled onto her side and gasped in pain, eyes flying open as her shoulder muscles convulsed at the strain.

Struggling to sit upright, Rey found that it was dark but dry where she was. She eventually sat and brought one of her legs under her as she reached for her shoulder. She yelped at the white hot pain that raced through her arm. Watery eyes fluttering closed, she took in a few deep breaths before she cast her eyes around.

There was very little light. No sky above, no sound of trees.

She must be in a cave.

Frowning, she tried to remember how she got here. She had been falling from the castle ruins and then…she remembered screaming, scared to die, and then something…catching her? That didn’t make any sense.

She got to her feet slowly and painfully and finally stood, hand resting against the smooth stone of a cave wall.

“All right,” she said, the words cutting through the silence.

It was answered by a deep, throaty rumble.

She froze. _A cave!_ The dragon. Of course. She felt stupid and exhausted and frightened all at once. She felt at her waist: no sword. 

She heard the clink of talons and the soft _shhhhhh_ as scales scraped against the earthen walls.

A moment later, the dragon breathed flames and it lit a large pile of trees and branches on fire. It lit up the space, showing nothing more than an empty cave with a small natural pool to the left of Rey, and the dragon, crouched at the entrance, hiding any chance of escape.

“Hello,” Rey said wearily. The dragon slowly crawled toward her like a cat, a little too small for the space. This must be a smaller cave off of a larger one with an entrance to the outside world. A perfect place for a tomb. “Did you…did you bring me here?”

The dragon tilted its head so the eye alit by the fire could focus on her. It was quite a lovely eye, and lovely scales, despite the fact that the beast could kill her in a moment if it wanted.

“Of course you did, who else would have?” She tried to smile but it turned into a wince. There was a rumbling deep from the dragon’s chest. “You don’t happen to know where I can find a prince, do you?”

The dragon huffed, kicking up a huge cloud of dust Rey had to close her eyes and wave her hand through the air to avoid inhaling it. Once it settled, she saw that the beast had settled down, the ground beneath its claws tilled like it was preparing it for a planting season. Rey walked a little closer.

“I think you saved my life,” she said softly. She walked agonizingly slowly toward the beast. “I should thank you for that but then that would make it very hard for me to kill you.”

It didn’t like that. Its lips curled back and it snarled. She stopped walking, holding up her palms in a show of peace. It eventually settled and she walked closer.

“Magnificent,” she whispered. The dragon did look remarkably beautiful up close. Mostly just its head and shoulders were in the room, its wings too big to fit into the space. Rey slowly, slowly moved her hand closer and eventually, with a feather-light touch, placed her palm on its snout. 

She felt a jolt, like lightning, shoot through her. “Oh!” she gasped, taking her hand away and staring at her palm. Frowning, she lightly touched the dragon’s skin again and felt nothing. 

It stared at her with an eye the size of her fist and she found herself smiling, ever so softly in the firelight.

“How awful it must be to be trapped in this wizard’s bubble here. I can feel it in you. You’re a free spirit, meant to roam freely.” She frowned as the beast nuzzled its head closer to her body. She felt the rough scales of its neck press against her legs. Sliding her hand over the bridge of its nose, she rubbed the space between his eyes like she often did the stray cats she met on her journey.

The low rumbling from the dragon’s chest made her laugh. The beast shifted at the sound, pulling back and staring at her.

She watched the creature with intelligent eyes assess her, before it started to shimmy backward out of the entrance. Rey was sweating from the heat of the bonfire by the time the dragon had pulled itself free.

She followed in uneasy steps and with hisses of pain. The next cave was a lot larger and she could see sunlight through the main entrance, though it was up a steep climb. 

The dragon had a whole assortment of things here. Lots of pieces of the castle, some goods in chests splintered by claws, and thankfully no skeletons. At least that Rey could see. There were no mounds of gold like the stories always told.

She was weaponless and had no intention of trying to leave. “This is all very lovely,” she said, walking through the small home the dragon had made. It looked particularly pleased at her words, rearing back on its legs, its tall horns scraping against the ceiling. Rey’s muscles tensed in memory of the last time it did that, and she hissed and grabbed at her arm.

The dragon fell lightly to its feet and tilted its head toward her.

“You healed my wound the other night,” Rey said, feeling more and more comfortable talking to the beast as she would any other person. “You don’t happen to also be able to fix internal injuries, do you? I pulled my arm muscles and joint very badly.”

The huff of breath that left the dragon this time did not stir up as much dust. It moved toward a small chest and shoved it across the floor at her. Rey knelt and opened it. Inside were a number of dresses and women’s clothing. With a little bit of a struggle, Rey found a cotton nightshirt and brought it out of the chest.

If you had asked Rey Kenobi one week ago if she thought she would be in a dragon’s cave, seeking medical assistance from said dragon, she would have called you a lunatic.

But that’s what she did, kneeling on half of the dress and asking the dragon to rip the rest with its claws. In the end, she had a long enough strip to wrap her arm in a tight sling against her chest.

By the end of it all she was tired and dirty and hungry. 

“Thank you,” she said, pressing her hand to the base of the dragon’s horns. It had laid down, chin against the stone floor, watching as she fixed up her arm as well as she could for now. It didn’t breathe fire and try to kill her. It didn’t growl or make a sound, just watching her.

With a smile, she slid her hand down and rubbed between its eyes again. “You don’t happen to have food a human could eat, do you?”

The big eye nearest to her blinked and then she was propelled back as it half-ran, half-flew from the cave.

Too tired to move, Rey sat back against the open chest, shoving the clothes to make a cushion for her back. She was just closing her eyes when the dragon returned with an entire bushel of berry bushes in its talons, ripped out at the root. It dropped them at her sides.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Thank you.” She reached forward for the juicy winter berries. It would take her a while, but she could get her fill of them.

She plucked and chewed and watched with interest as the dragon circled around the large cave four times before it came before her and laid down once again, it’s jaw pressing against one of her outstretched legs, nose by her hip.

“Oh, hello.” Rey went to lean forward and scratch its face again but she winced with the pain. The dragon growled and nudged her backward. “You know, for a dragon, you’re a very good caretaker. You could give some of the nuns I’ve come across a run for their money.”

Belly full of berries, and with the warmth from the dragon seeping through to her bones, Rey found herself quickly falling asleep.

oOo

When she woke, hours later with the moonlight streaming through the cave entrance, she was not alone.

There was no dragon with massive wings and twisted horns and scales as hard as steel laying before her, but a very human, very naked, _man_.

At first, she thought perhaps this was a dream. So she pinched herself. It hurt, so this wasn’t a dream.

Brow furrowed, Rey slowly scooted forward on her knees. The man had pale skin like he hadn’t seen the sun in years, and long, thick dark hair covering his face. Rey reached toward his outstretched hand, pressing quickly to his wrist. She felt the pulse of lifeblood beneath her fingers as he stirred.

She scurried backward, eyes wide.

The man woke and then sat upright, looking as startled as she felt. He stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching them, then touched his face and his chest.

Rey let out a tiny sound and his head snapped to her. He had a face she wouldn’t soon forget, and some absurd part of her brain asked, “Prince Benjamin?”

His own brow furrowed and he tilted his head at her in such a familiar way that Rey gasped. “Yes,” he replied, voice cracked and dry from underuse. And then, whether it be hearing his own voice, or the realization that she knew him, he broke into the most glorious smile Rey had ever seen on a man in her life. 

She found herself smiling in return. “Where did you come from?” she asked, feeling around and tossing him a dark coarse shirt to cover himself with as she grew more and more consciously aware of his nakedness. The prince huddled the shirt in his lap, sitting up properly and looking at her with the same keen awareness of the dragon…

“The curse,” he said, voice still scratchy. Rey told him to wait and found a broken bowl from one of the other chests in the cave to scoop water out of the smaller cave’s pool. The prince greedily drank it down and thanked her. “The curse. I was the dragon for all these years.”

Rey blinked. It made sense, of course. Though she doubted the Queen and King would have kept sending women to kill the dragon if they knew it was also their son. “So you’ve never been in that tower?”

He shook his head. “No. And I didn’t always have control. The curse was dark and twisted into my mind.” He raised his hands and skewed his fingers next to his head. “So I rampaged and killed many. I slowly gained control but I…I was still very much an animal.” He tilted his head again and Rey felt heat rise to her face. “You were the first person to speak to me beyond ‘ _Die, dragon!_ ’”

“I’m glad I did,” she replied.

“Yes.” He smiled again. “I am too. Thank you. You have saved my life and the lives of countless others who may have come after you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Rey,” she told him. “My name is Rey.”

oOo

And that is the end of the tale of the dragon and the prince of the Skywalker kingdom. In the end, the dragon was not a dragon and the prince was not a prince. But a young woman did save him and defeat the dragon, breaking the curse with her mind and her kindness over a sword.

The Queen and King were never happier to see their son, alive and well, if not a little ungroomed and with a new taste for barely cooked meat.

The royal family was true to their word with offering the prince’s hand to the knight that freed their son from the curse. She declined, wanting instead for companionship and a chance to travel the lands, _freely_ , with the prince before making her decision.

Prince Benjamin complied, more than happy to take leave of being in one stifling place, a proud horse to travel with and the beautiful knight, Rey Kenobi, at his side.


End file.
